The European Commission is one of the main institutions of the European Union. It represents and upholds the interests of the EU as a whole. It drafts proposals for new European laws. It manages the day-to-day business of implementing EU policies and spending EU funds.

The 28 commissioners, one from each EU country, provide the Commission’s political leadership during their 5-year term. Each Commissioner is assigned responsibility for specific policy areas by the President. The current President of the European Commission is José Manuel Barroso who began his second term of office in February 2010.

The Italian commissioner is Antonio Tajani responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship, which is also Vice-president of the Commission.